The Chinese Medical Journal published a preliminary report on how smoking impacted some of the first COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Wuhan. One result jumped off the page. Smokers were 14 times more likely to progress to serious disease or death as a result of the virus than nonsmokers.

The science is proven. Inhaled nicotine, through vaping or traditional cigarettes, weakens the protective lining of the lung and paralyzes the tiny hair cells (cilia) that sweep the lung clear of foreign particles. Smokers already have widespread lung inflammation and micro-scarring that exacerbates the pneumonia firestorm caused by any virus – especially one as rampant as COVID-19

The message to smokers and vapers should be: quitting smoking is at least as important as washing your hands and social distancing to keep yourself and others around you safe. Unfortunately, even after we get on the other side of this pandemic, we are months (possibly years) from a treatment or vaccine for COVID-19. There is no better time to quit smoking and quit vaping to give your lungs a fighting chance.